00:00It's been a long road for the short-form video app TikTok in the United States.
00:04But after years of back and forth, President Donald Trump says an American buyer has been
00:09found for the U.S. operations of the Chinese social media platform.
00:13We have a deal on TikTok. I've reached a deal with China. I'm going to speak to President Xi
00:18on Friday to confirm everything up. We made a very good trade deal, and I hope good for
00:23both countries, but a very different deal than they've made in the past.
00:27Trump's comments come after days of talks between U.S. and Chinese officials in Madrid,
00:32where a framework deal was also acknowledged by the Chinese side. Reports suggest an investor
00:38group led by U.S. tech company Oracle, along with Silverlake and Andreessen Horowitz, could
00:43hold about 80 percent, with TikTok owner ByteDance retaining roughly 20 percent. TikTok currently
00:50already routes all its U.S. traffic through Oracle's cloud infrastructure. Trump issued an executive
00:55order for the third time on Tuesday, delaying a ban on the app for another 90 days.
01:01It's the latest chapter in a years-long saga, from when Trump first pushed to force a sale
01:05in 2020, citing national security and data concerns, contentious congressional hearings,
01:11and a Supreme Court ruling upholding a potential ban on the app.
01:15But Trump grew to like TikTok, saying it helped him win the 2024 presidential election.
01:20I will take a look at TikTok. You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won
01:25youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with that.
01:33But big questions remain. Will ByteDance sell its content recommendation algorithm,
01:38which is considered the most valuable part of the platform? Will the deal satisfy U.S. legal
01:42requirements? China says it will review TikTok's technology exports and intellectual property
01:48licensing. But full details of the agreement have not been officially released. And it's the fine
01:53print that may determine what lies ahead for the Chinese app. Chris Ma and Chris Gorin for Taiwan Plus.
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